


You Came Along

by boasamishipper



Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, First Meetings, Gen, Male Friendship, Pre-Canon, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/pseuds/boasamishipper
Summary: “Lighten up, man. We were just messing around.”“The hell you were. Where do you get off saying that shit to him?”“You don’t know him like we do, Bradshaw. Damn kid’s nothing but fucking trouble - he’s a fucking maniac in the air and he goes through RIOs like Kleenex.”“Yeah,andhis dad wasDuke fucking Mitchell,”Squirt adds, like that’s supposed to mean something to him. Maybe it would if he paid more attention to the scuttlebutt back at Annapolis, but as far as he’s concerned, nobody should have to answer to these assholes for whatever their parents did.
Relationships: Nick "Goose" Bradshaw & Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Comments: 18
Kudos: 28
Collections: Limited Theatrical Release 2020





	You Came Along

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplecoffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/gifts).



Maybe married life’s worn him out, made him old and boring, but truth be told, he’d rather spend tonight at home bastardizing Walt Whitman to make his wife laugh _-_ _I hear America singing, the varied Caroles I hear -_ or washing baby food out of his mustache than listen to the same old, same old tough guy talk over a round of booze. Hell, this place doesn’t even have a piano, just a rickety jukebox that’s been blasting nothing but Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top all night. The company’s not much better than the music; still, he figures he better get used to them, seeing as they’ll all be brothers in arms on the USS _Kennedy_ come tomorrow morning. One of them could even be his pilot. (Christ help him if that’s the case.)

Well, okay, it’s not _all_ bad. He’s got a decent spot at the end of the counter, well within reach of a bowl of pretzels and the bartender’s attention, and his beer is nice and cold. Still, after his ears are close to bleeding from all the guys’ made up talk about the girls they’ve fucked back home and abroad, he’s seriously contemplating piling some dimes into the payphone outside to see if Carole is still awake, just for a chance at some real conversation - even though Bradley’s finally sleeping through the night and she’ll crucify him with a smile full of sunshine if he wakes his son even by accident. He’s about to risk it all anyway when he hears a burst of laughter and perks up like a dog smelling a bone. Laughter’s always a good thing, and depending on the mood of the laughers, it might be the right time to try out his joke about the tuba player and the one-legged jockey stranded on the desert island.

After a few seconds of craning his neck, he tracks the source of the laughter to the group of guys parked at the opposite end of the counter. He recognizes one of them from flight school and a couple from VT-10, and the rest are probably as big of assholes as the ones he knows. The dark-haired kid in the dress whites standing in front of them seems to feel the same way, because he snaps (loud enough to be heard over the music), “Look, why don’t you just shut the hell up, huh?”

“Why? Can’t handle someone treating you the way you deserve to be treated, Mitchell?” Domino Jackson shoves his aviator sunglasses up his forehead, where they hang crooked against the spikes of his short brown hair. The tall Marilyn-blonde girl hanging on his arm starts to giggle, the pitch as grating as nails on a chalkboard. “Christ, no fucking wonder Annapolis took one look at you and told you to take a long walk off a short pier.”

“Funny,” Mitchell says tightly. “That’s very funny. They tell you the same thing when you handed in your application, Jackson?”

“So fucking mouthy, Mitchell,” Domino says with an eye roll. “Even when nobody wants to hear a damn thing you say. With my luck and the way you fly, your fucking voice’ll be the last thing I hear ‘fore I hit the ground.”

Squirt Wilcox gives an ugly snort. His hair’s been liberally spiked up with hair gel, which looks terrible with his already-receding hairline. “Yeah, Mitchell, how long before you plan on getting all of us _real_ pilots killed up there?”

“He doesn’t need to plan,” Domino says dismissively, and there’s a glint in the man’s eyes that he does _not_ trust. “It’s in his blood, ain’t it, Mitchell?”

“Yeah,” Squirt crows. “He’s his old man, through and through.”

 _That_ makes him see red, and not just because Mitchell’s face flushes all the way up to the roots of his hair. By the time he gets off his stool and shoves through the crowd of giggling girls and pilots with shit-eating grins, Mitchell’s making a beeline for the bathrooms and Domino and his friends are wolf-whistling and cat-calling Mitchell in babyish voices, falling over themselves laughing like Mitchell running off’s the funniest thing they’ve ever laid eyes on. They won’t be laughing for long.

“Very funny,” he says, once he reaches his targets. His blood’s not boiling yet, but it’ll get there quick if they keep smirking from ear to ear. “Real classy, treating him like that. Maybe we can talk smack about your family next, Wilcox, whaddya think about that?”

Squirt’s smirk vanishes. “You better leave my family out of this, Bradshaw, or we’ll go outside right now and I’ll teach ya a lesson.”

“Only lesson that’s gonna be taught around here is when to keep your trap shut.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Well shit, I guess I am. You know, you’re a lot brighter than you look.”

Squirt goes puce. Domino just rolls his eyes. “Don’t be such a mother goose, Bradshaw,” he says, as snotty as a used tissue, which prompts a new round of laughter from his cronies and some mutters of _Mother Goose, that's a good one._ “Lighten up, man. We were just messing around.”

“The hell you were. Where do you get off saying that shit to him?”

“You don’t know him like we do, Bradshaw. Damn kid’s nothing but fucking trouble - he’s a fucking maniac in the air and I hear he goes through RIOs like Kleenex.”

“Yeah, _and_ his dad was _Duke fucking Mitchell,”_ Squirt adds, like that’s supposed to mean something to him. Maybe it would if he paid more attention to the scuttlebutt back at Annapolis, but as far as he’s concerned, nobody should have to answer to these assholes for whatever their parents did. “Somebody’s gotta put him in his place, it might as well be us.”

His vision floods red again. “Well, bless your hearts,” he says, every syllable scathing. “But it looks to me like y’all are the ones who need to be put in your place, not him.”

“‘Scuse me?”

“You heard me.” He gets right in their faces, not even bothering to lower his voice. Carole’s better at this threatening business than him - her style’s all Southern sweetness and light, lulling her victims into a verbal bear trap before they can even figure out what’s happening - but he’s too angry to do this proper. “And if any of y’all ever feel the urge to ‘put him in his place’ again - if y’all ever even _think_ about talking shit to him again - y’all had better make sure I’m not around, ‘cause I’ll jump all over your asses until you can’t even remember that single-syllable vocabulary of yours. That a clear enough threat for you?”

Domino exchanges an uneasy look with Squirt; the others busy themselves with their drinks, looking like they’re trying to come up with words that have more than one syllable just to make sure they still can. “Yeah, whatever, Mother Goose,” a few of them mumble, but he doesn’t move an inch until he hears Domino’s muttered _Got it Mother Goose._ His work here is done.

The bathrooms are all the way in the back of the bar, and he pushes the door to the men’s room open, ignoring the sign that reads Out of Order. In his experience, the best place to hide is the last place anyone would look - and sure enough, Mitchell’s sitting on the floor under the chipped white sink. His shoulders are shaking and his face is buried in a wad of those scratchy paper towels, his knees pulled up to his chest like he thinks he can disappear if he curls up small enough.

He clears his throat, and Mitchell instantly goes stiff as a board. “Hey, uh,” he starts, then stops when he realizes he doesn’t actually know the kid’s name. “You alright?”

“M’fine,” comes Mitchell’s (unconvincing) muffled voice. “Go ‘way.”

He hesitates for the barest of seconds before he shuts the door behind him. Something drips on his head, trickling down his face and into his mustache; he grabs another wad of paper towels from the dispenser, wipes his face, and joins Mitchell on the slightly sticky floor. From the looks (and smell) of it, the place has probably been out of order since the Kennedy assassination.

“Go away,” Mitchell says, less firm this time, his voice clearer but scraped raw. He helpfully ignores the comment and leans back against the chipped-tiled wall, the same ugly color of the floor. It’s miserable in here and smells like a nursing home, but not even the CNO could make him budge from this spot right now.

So. Mitchell’s clearly upset - not that he blames the kid for it. One sidelong look confirms he’s as tense as a coil, ready to snap. The easy thing to do would be to leave; he’s got no dogs in the race here, so to speak, and doesn’t want to stick his nose where he doesn’t belong. But he knows he’ll never forgive himself if he ups sticks and leaves Mitchell to spend the rest of the night crying in the bathroom by himself, or process his feelings by getting into a fight where the odds are stacked high against him. So what’s a guy like him to do?

 _Make him smile,_ he can practically hear Carole say, with a wink to boot. _Give him some of that charm of yours, you big stud. You’re real good at that._

 _Thanks, honey,_ he thinks back, smiling just a bit. _Will do._

“You know,” he says. He leans forward so he can rest his elbows on his knees. “I hoped it wasn’t possible, but I think they’ve become even bigger assholes than they were the last time I saw ‘em.” He pauses, contemplates. “I think their stupidity’s at about the same level, though. Can’t dig deeper than rock bottom.”

There’s a noise that might be a snort, or maybe just a too-quick breath. Either way, it invigorates him enough to continue.

“I remember this one time - I think it was Flight Suit Friday, actually - anyway, Domino spent the whole term telling everybody he could out-ride the record on the mechanical bull if he wanted to, so graduation came and he got roped into doing it. Steps right up to the plate, hops on fucking _side_ saddle, and two seconds in he’s holding on for dear life, cursing a blue streak, and then he goes _flying_ across the room and crashes right into that redhead he was sitting next to tonight - what’s his name, Harpoon - and then Harpoon crashes into Squirt, and Squirt knocks over the waitress…” He’s laughing too hard at the memory to continue for a second, and busies himself with wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. Carole loves this story, so he hopes the kid’s fighting back a smile at the very least. “Anyway, that’s probably why he got the callsign Domino.” Casually, he adds, “Never found out why Squirt got his, though.”

And just like how pretending mashed peas and carrots are the best food in the world works on Bradley every time, Mitchell takes the bait. “I heard it was because of his height.”

“Yeah, he got teased about that at VT-10,” he says, grinning. “Everybody was surprised that he had such a short temper.”

He’s hoping that’ll get another snort - he’s pretty proud of himself for punning on his feet like that - but Mitchell stays quiet. _Guess he’s pretty well-acquainted with Squirt’s short temper by now, come to think of it. And everybody else’s, if what his dad did was that bad._

He scoots closer and bumps Mitchell’s knee with his own. Mitchell doesn’t even twitch. “Y’know,” he tries, “people say a lot of things that aren’t true when they’re pissed off. Or piss-drunk.”

Mitchell shakes his head. “S’fine,” he mumbles, resigned. “They didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” The kid sounds so damn matter of fact about it that his chest starts to ache like a horse kicked him there with steel horseshoes on.

“If it helps,” he says after a while. “I get compared to my dad all the time too.”

Mitchell doesn’t move or say a word, but he can tell the kid’s listening.

“My family owns a ranch back home, in Dallas: cattle, horses, pigs, you name it. The deed’s been passed down in our family for generations, father to son, but I didn’t want to be like my dad and my granddad and everybody else. I wanted to join up, serve my country.” He mimes marching in place and puffs out his chest, but quits after a couple seconds. The motions are only funny if somebody’s actually watching him, which Mitchell is not. “Everyone I know back home still compares me to my old man when they think I can’t hear ‘em, how I turned my back on my family. Can’t say the hurting ever really goes away, but…the more people you’ve got on your side, the harder it is for their words to get to you.”

For a moment, in the dead space between songs in the bar, between people yelling and hollering, he swears he hears the familiar roaring of an engine outside. Not a plane - the closest airfield isn’t for miles - but it’s as soothing as a cool breeze in the heat of July. Soon he’ll be flying free again.

The sound seems to soothe the kid too, or at least relax him enough to let his guard down a little. Either way, he finally raises his head from the wad of paper towels, revealing a splotchy face and red-rimmed green eyes. He’s not much of a kid - probably a year or two younger than him at the most - but he’s definitely a looker, as Carole would say, even if he looks more like a drowned cat in this state.

Not meeting his eyes, Mitchell clears his throat and says, “My dad was never around.” The next words are clinical, like he’s said them so often they’ve been robbed of all meaning. “He disappeared in an F-4, when I was a kid. November fifth, 1965.”

He keeps quiet. Waits for more.

“My old man was a great fighter pilot.” But even as Mitchell says it, he shakes his head, like he’s trying to convince himself. Or maybe trying to un-convince himself. “Best of the best. But he screwed up, somehow. Died a traitor.” His laugh is bitter; he swipes his wrist roughly under his eyes. “And now I gotta live with it.”

Christ. And he thought the legacy he got saddled with was bad. (Pun fully intended.)

“Maybe he was great,” he says, once he’s sure Mitchell has tapered off for good. The last thing he wants is to make the kid clam up by accident. “But you’ll be better. Bet you already are, come to think of it.”

The line of tension in Mitchell’s shoulders seems to ease. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says easily. He pretends he doesn’t notice Mitchell desperately clinging to every word he says, even if Mitchell hasn’t looked at him once yet. “I’d fly with you over the guys out there any day of the week.”

Mitchell scoffs, scrubs a hand down his face. “You’ve never even seen me fly.”

“I know a good thing when I see one.” Mitchell blinks, like the kid thinks he might be talking about someone else. _“Are_ you a good pilot?”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. “I am.” The words are firm, confident, hardly any ego. Mitchell says it like he’s stating a fact, not a bit like the pilots he’s met and flown with who are all hat, no cattle.

He shrugs. “Knew it,” he says simply, and bumps Mitchell’s shoulder with his own amiably. “Just so long as you promise to keep me inside the plane at all times, we’ll be good. I’m more a fan of flying than falling.”

Mitchell doesn’t smile. “People think I’m a... that I’m a wild card, the way I fly. Unpredictable. Crazy.” Now it feels like the kid is _actively_ trying to make him agree with Domino and them, to convince him that he’s a bad seed. “I’m not... I mean, all they do is _think_ up there, even when they don’t have time to, and I take the chances they don’t and then they - that’s why they don’t...” He goes red and clams up, like he’s afraid he’s said too much.

He wonders when the last time anyone let the kid talk was. Or when anyone ever asked Mitchell how he felt about anything - even about the simple things, like what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what makes him smile. With time, maybe he’ll be lucky enough to find all that out.

“What’s the fun in being like everyone else anyway?” he says lightly. “Half the guys I’ve seen can’t make a decision up in the sky without their CO in their ears. They’ve probably never had an idea of their own - hell, even if they did, it’d die of loneliness first.”

That gets a laugh: a real one. Finally, somebody who appreciates his jokes besides Carole. He fights the urge to punch the air in celebration.

“So listen,” he says, his tone so casual and easy-breezy he should win an Oscar for it. “I’ve gotta be straight with you: much fun as sitting here on the floor with you is, I can’t help but think we’d have a better time swapping stories over a pint or two back in the bar. I’ll even buy the first round.”

Mitchell glances over at him and - _victory!_ \- offers up a tiny, tentative smile. Mission accomplished. They can mail his medal straight to his quarters on the _Kennedy._ “Sure.” He stands and offers Mitchell his remaining paper towels and his right hand, and Mitchell accepts both, letting himself be pulled back to his feet. Blotting his face again, he says, quiet, “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. You sure you’re alright?”

He blinks. “ - Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good.”

Mitchell tosses the wad of paper towels in the trash can; eyes him for a second, hesitates, and then holds out his left hand. “...I’m Maverick.”

He grins wide. “Good to meet you, Mav,” he says, and shakes his hand. “I’m Goose.”


End file.
